Cameron Village Theatre

511 Woodburn Road,
Raleigh, NC 27605

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Showing 1 - 25 of 26 comments

rivest266
rivest266 on May 6, 2020 at 3:29 pm

The Martin Valley Twin reopened on June 20th, 1975. Grand opening ad posted.

raysson
raysson on April 8, 2016 at 12:10 pm

Ralph Daniel:

KING OF KINGS also played at the Cameron Village as a reserved seat engagement for it’s Eastern North Carolina premiere on January 26, 1962. Presented in Super Technirama 70mm and 6 Channel Stereophonic Sound.

Ralph Daniel
Ralph Daniel on April 4, 2016 at 11:46 pm

I saw Ben-Hur at Cameron Village when I was a student at NCSU. A fellow student (really from the sticks)went with me, and he had never before seen a theatrical movie, so I didn’t know what to expect from him. Oddly, he thought the goriest scenes were hilarious. Go figure.

raysson
raysson on August 10, 2015 at 1:52 pm

This theater got a lot of the MGM and Columbia product. Not to mention the longest-running engagement that this theater booked was on June 12, 1967 for it showing of THE DIRTY DOZEN that brought it records crowds for 15 weeks.

raysson
raysson on August 4, 2015 at 2:26 pm

Jay, The same thing happen when I tried to see RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK on its opening weekend of June 12,1981. The lines for this movie snaked all the way to the opposite end of the Cameron Village Shopping Center were it was completely sold out within minutes and that went for its matinee showings too on its opening weekend. Raleigh played it at two cinemas..the other was the Tower Theatres 1 & 2 in East Raleigh.

Jaystriker
Jaystriker on August 3, 2015 at 2:06 pm

In April 1984, tried to see Friday the 13th The Final Chapter at the Village Twin, but was sold out.

raysson
raysson on March 30, 2015 at 3:10 pm

The Cameron Village Theater got a lot of the movies made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia, Disney and Universal. During the 60’s a ton of the Elvis Presley films made by MGM played here first-run.

raysson
raysson on March 30, 2015 at 3:08 pm

The theater once stood where K&W Cafeteria is located now. Information regarding this theater should be revised as “closed”, “demolished”, “750 seats”

raysson
raysson on March 30, 2015 at 3:06 pm

Correction: William Wyler’s BEN-HUR played here as a reserved seat engagement at Raleigh’s Cameron Village Theater on August 10, 1960 for its Eastern North Carolina premiere event.

The other reserved seat engagement in the Carolinas played at Charlotte’s Plaza Theater on June 10, 1960 as the reserved seat engagement showing.

Raleigh and Charlotte were the only two cities in the state that presented BEN-HUR as a roadshow engagement. Other cities didn’t get the film until late-1960 or early-1961 as a general release even though it was originally released in 1959.

raysson
raysson on July 29, 2013 at 4:13 pm

The first LETHAL WEAPON movie played here first-run in 1987.

raysson
raysson on December 10, 2012 at 1:35 pm

David Lean’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA played at Raleigh’s Cameron Village Theatre as an exclusive engagement showing on November 17,1963.

From the ads: DIRECT FROM IT’S ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENT,YOU CAN SEE LAWRENCE OF ARABIA NOW AT POPULAR PRICES FOR IT’S EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT!

raysson
raysson on December 4, 2012 at 5:21 pm

The Cameron Village Theatre,aka The Village Twin became a center of controversy and spark numerous protests by civic leaders and angry parents when a screening of “SILENT NIGHT,DEADLY NIGHT” was booked there in December of 1984. This movie spark outrage as lines were picketed around the theatre and in the parking lot across the street from the cinema. The situation got so out of hand,that by the following week,the manager pulled the film from the venue. It was replaced by a Disney flick.

raysson
raysson on July 18, 2012 at 5:32 pm

I have the original ads for BEN HUR where it played in Raleigh and Charlotte in 1960.

raysson
raysson on June 6, 2012 at 4:41 pm

This theatre was still going strong by 1989. It didn’t closed until March of 1990. I have the ads for it’s original closing.

raysson
raysson on April 10, 2012 at 11:53 am

The Cameron Village when it was a single screen theatre mostly got a lot of the MGM product. A lot of the Elvis Presley films released by MGM got played here first-run.

A lot of great films played here. The Cameron Village on November 17,1963 played LAWRENCE OF ARABIA for it’s only first-run engagement showing. A Raleigh Premiere.

Also played here: Lee Marvin in THE DIRTY DOZEN

Mel Brooks' BLAZING SADDLES

JAWS played here on June 20,1975

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK played here on June 12, 1981.

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER

Micah
Micah on October 19, 2010 at 12:19 am

When I get extra time I like to look at the Raleigh theater descriptions. I have found many mistakes in nearly all of the main theater descriptions for the Raleigh theaters. In the case of the Village Twin, the original auditorium was not left intact after the twinning. The auditorium was split down the middle creating two horrible shoe-box auditoriums with smallish screens.

Mark_L
Mark_L on July 17, 2010 at 2:52 pm

Raysson, How are you defining “roadshow”?

TLSLOEWS
TLSLOEWS on July 13, 2010 at 6:41 pm

K&W Cafeterias is still listed at this address,as the header states.

Mike Rogers
Mike Rogers on July 13, 2010 at 6:15 pm

Thanks raysson. I see you had an “i think” by WILD BUNCH,I will be surprized if someone does not get on and either agree or correct it.How some of these guys get facts on what a theatre plays when they don’t even live there amazes me.

raysson
raysson on January 14, 2010 at 2:14 pm

The Village Theatre remained a single screen cinema until 1975. On June 20,1975,the Cameron Village Theatres were twinned with the original 750 seat auditorium still intact,and adding another side that expanded the seating to over 900.

The opening of Steven Spielburg’s 1975 blockbuster “Jaws” was the featured opener for the Village Twin that opened to capacity crowds in Screen 1. Screen 2 played a Disney flick “Escape To Witch Mountain” that lasted one week before it booked another flick “The Other Side Of The Mountain” a week later. “Jaws” however was the potential sell-out and crowd pleaser each week where it played at the Village for 26 weeks.

raysson
raysson on May 24, 2009 at 5:19 pm

The theatre was a single screen theatre during the late 1940’s all the way through the mid-to-late 1970’s when it was the Cameron Village Theatre. The auditorium at that time was HUGE and it seated over 800 people.

Somewhere in the late-1970’s or early 1980’s,the original auditorium was split in two,making it a twin cinema renamed the Village Twin Theatre,and it remained that way until it closed in the early 1990’s.

travistarrant
travistarrant on September 15, 2008 at 7:02 pm

This theater was the first theater that I ever went to as a child in 1973 and what they were showing was the old movie serials from the 30’s, 40’s and the 50’s. I remember seeing Lethal Weapon 2 and Star Trek V there the last summer that it was open.

raysson
raysson on July 6, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Where K&W Cafeteria is now where the Village Twin Theatre once stood.
One of the oldest moviehouses in Raleigh until it closed in the early 1990’s. The last picture show that played at the Village Twin Theatre was an animated Disney flick “The Little Mermaid”.